The invention relates to a pipe branch piece for pressure pipe lines, more particularly for water power installations, having a large-diameter pipe leg and at least two pipe legs of relatively small diameter, the pipe sections with which the pipe legs abut on one another being conical in shape and contacting a common imaginary sphere, and at the junction region between two abutting conical pipe sections of two relatively small diameter pipe legs there is arranged a curved reinforcing element situated within the pipe branch piece. Between on the one hand the conical pipe section contacting the imaginary sphere and on the other hand the pipe line run joined to the pipe branch piece there may be arranged a second conical pipe section.
A pipe branch piece of this kind can be used as a distributing piece in which case the throughflow medium flows in through the large-diamter pipe leg and out through the pipe legs of small diameter, or as a collecting piece in which case the medium flows in the opposite direction.
In known pipe branch pieces of this kind the curved reinforcing element is so constructed that in its largest cross-section, that is to say in the cross-section which is situated in the plane defined by the pipe leg axes, only tensile stresses occur. In this way the material outlay is reduced to a minimum. (Swiss Patent No. 350,511)